The Equivalence Principle
by Lena86
Summary: She's not sure when it started, the pull that losing him creates. She should be sure. She's a scientist after all, and she should have noted the time and date she first felt the force acting upon her.
1. Chapter 1

**The Equivalence Principle**

Someone once told her that if you put a frog in boiling water it'll hop out, save itself. However, if you slowly heat the water with the frog already inside it won't know what's happening until it's too late. It's not true, she knows, but she thinks it's an appropriate analogy for what's happened to her.

By the time she knows what's happening it's too late to save herself.

She's not sure when it started, the pull that losing him creates. She should be sure. She's a scientist after all, and she should have noted the time and date she first felt the force acting upon her. Quantifying it would have made her more aware, able to get herself away before gravity pulled her in.

/\/

She isn't supposed to be looking for him. The knowledge that she's doing so anyway bothers her, but she can't stop herself. Telling herself the shield generator is likely in the part of the facility not masquerading as the SGC, she makes her way through the tunnels.

When she finds the prone Tok'ra she doesn't allow her relief to show itself, instead making quick work of the revival process on the cryotube.

She's still disoriented from the effects of Hathor's hand device when he pulls her to him. She can feel his fingers flexing against her back as he shivers convulsively and pulls him closer, telling herself it's about sharing body heat and not the need to reassure herself he's still alive, still himself.

/\/

She's saved him, but maybe he doesn't want that. The idea that he might want to stay here bothers here more than it should and she realises just how deep her lie to Doctor Fraiser runs. More than just physical attraction, she knows she can't leave here without him.

He walks away from her, turning his back on her and holding the native woman - Laira, she remembers - and she feels the echo of Doctor Carter. Feels just as much the outsider as she had watching him kiss her alternate, but this is worse somehow. This woman is a stranger in a way that Doctor Carter wasn't and she feels as though Laira has taken something from her.

But he leaves with them, and she supposes the pull of his duty is too strong.

/\/

She watches him hold the gate open, not sure she knows him anymore, not sure she wants to. He's out of uniform, no longer part of the thing she'd thought meant so much to both of them, and she can't for the life of her understand how he's here. He'd left them for Laira and she can't stop her eyes flicking between him and the event horizon, expecting the other woman to walk through the gate at any moment. Then his new team - his targets - start coming through and she begins to understand that this was never about Laira.

He arrests Makepeace and talks pointedly about how they need their allies, not their technology, all the while avoiding looking at SG1 and she realises where he's been.

She hates him a little then - more than she had when he'd denied she knew him - a feeling that will return again and again.

Because he can lie to her. It's _easy_ for him. And, when he needs her to, he can always, _always_ make her believe him.

Still, her body's own betrayal is worse. He'd come through the gate and her eyes locked onto him, anger fueling the intense once over that tells her he's alright. When the gateroom starts to clear out he moves to stand before them and she can't help the smile. It'll be put down to forgiveness for his deception, she knows, but for herself, she knows it's more than that. It's relief. He's back, he never really left.

She _does_ know him.

/\/

She'd thought herself alone in this. This deeper-than-appropriate feeling, this respect-attraction-need thing she won't label. She'd thought herself alone and the moment she realises she's not scares her.

He won't leave.

The refusal is torn from him and she sees the moment he realises how exposed he is. This isn't _No, Carter _or _Not without you, Major. _It's not even _We don't leave our people behind. _Colonel O'Neill has nothing to do with this.

Jack does.

She can't let this happen, but she can't stop it. She knows she can't make him leave if he doesn't want to and knows there's something of their CO / subordinate relationship in her failure to make him save himself, but really it's just who he is. He won't leave here without her because he can't.

When the forcefield falls she's _almost_ as relieved for her own sake as she is for his. He doesn't mention it and neither does she, the moment they realised he was prepared to die here so she wouldn't be alone. So that he wouldn't be without her. They're gone, meeting Teal'c and Daniel coming back to find them and she manages to convince herself it's a team thing, an SG1 thing. Not a _them_ thing. Not a problem, not really. Not something they need to do anything about.

/\/

_I just got a mayday from Jack._

She insists on staying behind to fix the engines so her father can fly the ship to him. Jacob isn't happy about it she knows, but it's worth it when Daniel brings him onto the peltac, right up until she realises he's alone.

Teal'c is gone and they can't get to him, can't make it home. The loss of her friend hurts her as much as she can tell it's hurting him. The relief that he's here, that he made it back feels disloyal to Teal'c but she can't help it.

/\/

She wonders if it's the same for him. If he can't help himself. Sure, he's always there. But he's there when SG2 come back under heavy fire. When SG9 tumble through the event horizon and down the ramp he's in the control from, watching.

There are moments she knows he's just as compelled as she. He bursts through the door as they're about to slide the needle into her skin and he's just as cavalier as ever, but his hand comes to rest on her leg, his fingers tightening convulsively as they keep their words light.

He almost didn't make it in time and she can see he knows it.

/\/

When he stumbles through the gate from the alpha site he's alone and she feels guilty that they didn't go to meet him. Logically she knows there wasn't time, that there was no need for SG1 to be on hand at the alpha site waiting for him. He made it out of Baal's fortress, he could make it the last few million light years home.

But he doesn't look like himself. He's out of uniform, the one they sent with him seemingly left behind at the Tok'ra base. From the control room, she sees the clothes he's wearing are torn, bloody. But he's as upright as ever as he stands at the base of the ramp, taking in the gateroom in a gestalten flicker he's rarely performed so obviously.

The general greets him and he says something glib in response, but as he turns to leave the gateroom with the medical team he glances up at the control room, sees her watching. For the first time in forever, there's no guard in his eyes. What she sees hurts more than his anger could.

He's drained, his eyes dull with exhaustion and he looks at her like he barely knows her for a moment before his eyes flash hurt and relief, packaged together in a way she doesn't want to examine.

Later she finds out he makes it all the way to the infirmary before collapsing. She wonders at the strength of will that must have taken, then remembers he once crawled to safety with multiple broken bones and a skull fracture, because he needed to get home to his wife. It's madness to wonder what brought him home this time so she doesn't let herself do it.

She sees him briefly while he's too sedated for the sarcophagus withdrawal to make its presence truly felt. While he sleeps she watches him a while, knowing Janet will keep her secret.

/\/

It feels like everyone knows. Harriman leaves a space for her in the control room.

Janet lets her linger in the infirmary longer than she should, keeping her staff busy elsewhere while she forces her cheery words on him, using them to force space between them even as she's unable to leave him alone.

Perhaps more worryingly, General Hammond gives her far too much space, seeming to sense there's nothing he can do when that feeling of loss descends.

In the humidity of the cells, Teal'c turns away to keep watch while she rests her head against his shoulder, her exhaustion letting her forget she shouldn't be doing this, his fear making him allow it.

He must have really been afraid, she thinks later. To have swept her up into his arms and carried her to Nirrti himself he must have been absolutely terrified.

/\/

The Tok'ra let her out of the ship first, Teal'c and Jonas following close behind as she meets him halfway. He's lost weight, she sees, taking in the bagginess of his BDUs and the stiffness in his leg as he walks towards her. Later she'll learn how he got hurt and her guilt over letting Maybourne get her zat will make her apologise.

He'll wave it off. He always does.

For now, she simply sweeps her eyes over him, catching him doing the same with her. He makes a joke about how long it's taken them to find him and she finds she can't respond in kind, not this time.

Teal'c comes to her rescue, grabbing his arm in greeting. Jonas too, directing their attention to the prone figure of Colonel Maybourne on the ground behind him.

She finds she can't stop looking at him during the flight to the gate. She watches him talk quietly with their Tok'ra pilot before heading out of the ship, leaving Maybourne behind. While Jonas dials home she asks and he tells her what he's done. When she asks him if he'll get into trouble over it he shrugs as if he doesn't care, as if it doesn't matter that Maybourne is the reason she'd almost lost him.

/\/

He's at the base of the ramp when she brings her makeshift team back from Anubis' base. Daniel is beside him on crutches and that worries her until her quick appraisal tells her he himself is unharmed.

His eyes widen slightly at Teal'c's binding and her sling but he doesn't address it, waiting until the others have turned to leave before stopping her.

Eyes lock and she finds herself smiling at the moment, a bookend to the last time she saw him in her lab when he told her he was going after Daniel. She'd understood why, was glad it was him, but the luck they wished one another felt like something else entirely and she's not sure how much longer she can do this.

/\/

When he confirms the kill she allows herself to relax against the fallen tree. He asks if she's ready to move and she's not. She can't quite summon the energy to be Major Carter at this point.

If he and Teal'c hadn't arrived when they did she'd be dead. It's a fact as immutable as gravity and she can't bring herself to soldier on just yet. She can feel him watching her a moment before he sinks down beside her, calling her into his side and dropping his arm around her shoulders.

Somewhere beneath her exhaustion, she's surprised at his action. She'd thought this was a thing of the past now, that her involvement with Pete meant she'd lost this forever because in the face of the lack of a future she'd given him up rather than lose him and she knows he knows.

But he holds her anyway, his head dropping to hers as they sit in silence. It doesn't escape her notice that he doesn't pull her close, doesn't speak in the long minutes they sit together, Teal'c discreetly standing guard.

/\/

In the infinite seconds it takes him to fall the battle around her is silenced. She breaks cover, going against everything she knew before she met him and everything he's taught her since to get to him. The moment she allows herself is brief. She calls for a medic, barely registering Daniel's voice as he does the same.

It's not until she's in the seclusion of her lab that she realises the cap in her hand isn't her own.

When Janet dies and he lives she feels treacherously as though their lives have been exchanged on her behalf simply because in the moment he fell she felt like she was falling too. It doesn't make sense for the doctor to be dead when she's supposed to be safe on the base, for him to live when he's almost constantly in harm's way. When he purposefully puts himself there.

There's no relief she can feel without being winded by guilt, but she allows herself to seek him out when she finds out he's leaving the base. She's just checking on him, as Daniel and Teal'c have already. She knows quite a few base personnel looked in on him while he was unconscious in recovery, reassuring themselves SG1's leader was still whole.

She would have done the same but she didn't trust herself in front of an audience, and seeing him lying there unconscious won't drive out the image of him hitting the ground on 666. So here she is, just saying hi before she goes home to Cassie and Daniel comes to drive him home.

He's in a private room and it's not until she's standing there with the door closed behind her that she remembers why they don't do this. She holds herself back, watching him pull his t-shirt on, then his BDU shirt.

She can't stop herself telling him what brought her here, but it comes out strangled as she tries and fails to keep it in, to keep the words away from him.

She wants to be a better soldier for him, a better girlfriend to Pete. She wants to distance herself as she knows she should, but when he's not a magnet he's a black hole and she only breaks the laws of physics to save him, not herself so when he calls her she goes willingly, immediately, colliding with him in a way she shouldn't as she digs her fingers into his back, holding him closer than is allowed so she can feel his breath against her neck when he drops his face to the place where it meets her shoulder.

/\/

After he leaves the base it doesn't make sense for the rest of them to stay so she leaves too, making her way topside without saying goodbye to the rest of her team.

Thankfully her house is empty and she moves through it without turning on the lights. She finds herself avoiding her own gaze in the mirror as she brushes her teeth, her eyes remaining resolutely on the sink.

She doesn't go to bed, knowing it would be pointless. Instead, she sits in her living room, her eyes staring blankly at nothing.

The sun comes up and she's already dressed, car keys in hand. She runs her weekend errands, knowing where she's headed but still unsure how to make this step.

When he answers the door she gives him her bravest face, feeling it drain when she takes in his sleep dishevelled appearance. Despite her fears, he invites her in and she feels the underlying charge between them increase as he shuts the front door.

Sitting beside him, she allows her frustration to show but he doesn't rise to it, instead choosing to remind her that what they're doing - what _he's_ done - will be worth it if it pays off. His meaning is clear and it hurts her to hear it. This is the culmination of everything that kept them apart and it's worth it if it works out, never mind if she loses him in the process.

She's poised to argue the point when Daniel knocks at the door and she's never been more torn between relief and frustration.

/\/

She's lost him, she thinks absurdly. Not the way she - and most likely he - always thought she would. He's alive, she's alive. But she's finally made it here and he's not alone.

She realises how selfish that is. She's not been alone in over a year, she's getting married in a week, why should he be alone?

She should have known better than to trust her own conjured version of him. In all the years she's known him, he's proven hard to predict again and again. _Before_ she knew him, even.

How many officers would have dared what he did after the first Abydos mission? How many would have recommended Teal'c for SG1 just seconds after their CO met the former hostile?

She's too late. It's an unfamiliar feeling. Usually she makes it, saving him and everyone else in the nick of time. But he doesn't need saving, she sees.

She's relieved when her phone rings, then horrified at that relief when the message is relayed.

The observation room is blissfully quiet as she watches her father say his goodbyes. She feels him enter the room before he sits down next to her and barely acknowledges the separate layer of grief that makes her feel, that she's still drawn to him is torture. But today is the day she loses her father, her fiancé and him and only the former of those can take precedence.

She speaks softly to him because it isn't his fault. She did this to them and it doesn't matter that it was the right thing to do. He calls her to him again and she barely thinks about where they are, about the cameras and personnel everywhere because she thinks it doesn't matter anymore, she's technically still engaged and now that he's lost to her, any sense of an offence to propriety is nullified. She goes, taking his hand because she's tired and hurting and she needs to.

She's surprised at the tone in his voice when he turns to her, like he's explaining something she should have known. Like it's obvious.

/\/

He's leaving. She suddenly feels as though there's no air in the cabin so she congratulates him on his promotion and heads outside, leaving him to answer Daniel and Teal'c's questions.

When he follows her she finds she can't look at him, keeping her eyes on the water instead. She hears him shift, leaning down on the fence in a mirror of her own pose. She lets herself watch his hands as he clasps them together in front of himself.

When his right hand breaks away and takes her left she automatically tries not to flinch away from the contact before realising her instinct is to tighten her fingers on his convulsively. Too late to stop herself, she locks their fingers together, threading hers through his in a way she shouldn't. She watches their hands a moment, then looks up to see he's watching her, his eyes impossible to read in the light spilling out of the house.

She's losing him again, but the despair she usually feels in moments like these is conspicuously absent, she realises. She misses it a little. It's like a part of her, a weight in her chest for almost as long as she's known him.

He straightens, drawing up to his full height and looking down at her with something approaching amusement crossing his features before it's gone, replaced by concern.

As though he can read her mind he tells her she's not losing him, there's a window of opportunity here they can hold open. If she wants to.

While he's talking she realises she doesn't have the words for this any more than he does. That when she went to him after Pete showed her the house she was hoping the words would arrive and some had - words about pretending and hiding and quashing. Words about timing and fear and _I do, do you? I always have, have you? _

But they're bad words, she can see that now. She's losing him but not _losing_ him and it's not new, this feeling, just the inverse of the norm and over the last eight years surely they've said everything they needed to say about this?

She realises he's stopped speaking and she's not said a word of what she's thinking out loud and steps forward, colliding with him in a way that for once has nothing to do with his personal brand of gravity and everything to do with the fact that she's tired of falling.

He catches her, like he always has, but _not_ like always, too. Suddenly this is different and perfect and so close to being allowed that she can't bring herself to care that it isn't. As she kisses him she thinks about how she nearly lost him - so many times - and how he nearly lost her and it seems incredibly unlikely that they're here, finally.

They break apart for air and she pushes him back into the fence, using his own pull against him as she finally lets go and falls into place.


	2. Chapter 2

He should have known they were in trouble the minute she shut down Kawalsky and Ferretti. The minute she levelled her eyes at him and offered to arm wrestle him. But he hadn't worried. They were only going to retrieve Daniel after all and he wasn't planning on sticking around after that.

Besides, he likes her cockiness, likes the soldier despite the scientist. Later, when he finds - much like with Daniel - he likes the scientist too, he doesn't have the time to dwell on it.

He never works out when it became so important to make her laugh but he does stop himself calling her by her first name and knows why she'll never use his because he can see the potential there even when he thinks they have a handle on it.

/\/

He can barely focus long enough to keep himself awake but he knows he has to stop her working. He's seen this in both her and Daniel, the drive to work at a problem until the solution presents itself out of sheer desperation. He recognises that driving force as something all of SG1 share and part of him wonders how that's going to play out the longer they're a team. Teams need balance and if they're all going to be this stubborn he's not sure it can work.

But right now he needs to focus on her. He can feel a swell and a heat in his chest that can't be good and he worries that if he can't get her to stop before he passes out she'll keep working. She doesn't like that he kept the broken ribs from her, he can tell, but there's some self-recrimination there too. She seems to think she should have known.

If she can't fix the DHD he's going to have to order her to leave him behind and he can already tell it's going to be a fight, but he can't let her die here too.

/\/

She forgives him easily and he's not sure he likes how that makes him feel. Daniel will give him a hard time and Teal'c won't pull any punches - figuratively or literally - but he hadn't realised she'd forgive him before they even leave the gate room. After all, she doesn't know that he argued with the Asgard about the necessity of lying to the rest of SG1, doesn't know he only did it because he had to. But she forgives him anyway.

He wishes she hadn't. Wishes she'd given him the cold shoulder - inasmuch as she'd ever be capable of doing so with a superior officer - but she hasn't. She's gone from incomprehension at his actions to understanding to smiling _that_ smile at him before he's even completely off the ramp and he knows he doesn't deserve it to be that easy.

He thinks - _hopes _\- it's because of the three of them, she's uniquely placed to understand him. To understand his job. He knows Daniel, for all that he's made his peace with it, still regards the military in general and his career history in particular with what he tends to think of as privileged distaste. Daniel has the luxury of the high moral ground and although it irks him, he knows he doesn't want that to change.

Teal'c doesn't have an underhand bone in his body. The Jaffa is the embodiment of the honourable warrior, something he knows he's not.

She's honourable too, but she gets it. Gets him. He hopes that's what's behind her quick forgiveness, but he's not able to stop himself seeing the relief in her eyes when she smiles and it makes him wonder.

/\/

He's able to keep himself under control long enough to realise beating the hell out of the panel won't drop the shield. He wonders if he would have maintained that semblance of control if she hadn't ordered him - _begged_ him - to leave. Her order is just as desperate as his refusal in its own way and when he meets her eyes he sees his own realisation reflected there and wonders what'll happen now they're each aware of the other.

It means they can't deny it anymore, he can't deny it. The lie hed constructed in the privacy of his own head is shattered. He can't invite her to the cabin, telling himself it would be the same as with Daniel or Teal'c. Because now they both know just how far they've let this go. He wonders if that's why she refused, because she'd known it wouldn't be safe. He wouldn't be surprised; she's the smart one after all.

Because he's not the smart one he'll stay here until the Jaffa find them and they both know it. He'll force himself to watch her die - will die himself - because he can't leave knowing it'll be without her.

They say nothing while the Jaffa approach, but he can feel her eyes on his face like a physical touch and his fingers flex, wanting to reach for her. The pattern here is not lost on him. But for once they're both just looking at the other and he hates himself a little that seeing what he's feeling mirrored in her actually feels good.

He's often thought they'd end up like this, he was just certain it'd be him getting left behind because he's still pretty sure, even now, that he could make her leave.

When the shield drops he knows getting away from here needs him to work, to give orders and not think about how else this might have gone down so he doesn't grab her hand as they run, doesn't look back to make sure she's there during the run for the gate. He buries it all away, the look on her face and the sandbag to the chest feeling of their shared understanding.

/\/

He's not stupid, despite his efforts to appear so. He knows that there's a job to do, knows better than anyone that to do it they need to reestablish the status quo, the chain of command.

But his rank has never felt so heavy a burden to carry until now. It's not better, knowing it's both of them, knowing that's what survives of them, and he'd never expected it to be. He wonders if she had.

He's always known that the minute they both know it'll make this that much harder. It's one thing to have to watch yourself, another to have to watch someone else too.

So he tilts his head to the side, echoing the word to help her rebuild their careful distance but he lets something of how he's feeling bleed into it too, because when they're still here, still dressed as who they were when they thought they could be together he can't just let it go.

She told him once that if the moon was moved just a bit closer or a bit further away in orbit life on Earth would be destroyed, so it's best it stays where it is, just close enough.

He wonders which of them is the moon in this scenario.

/\/

She yells at him and he grabs her without thinking, hauling her around to face him and yelling back. He needs to keep the chain of command in place because without it they're lost, but after they're done yelling he doesn't let her go.

Instead, he watches as her gaze flits between his eyes and his mouth, knowing he's doing the same. And this is so much worse than it would have been before 118. Before the memory stamp left them each with the taste of the other, the memory of his hands in her hair and hers under his shirt.

When Teal'c calls to them he tells himself he's relieved. If the Jaffa's voice had come a moment later he's sure they would have given in to the pull and he knows that would have made it that much harder to go back to how things are, how they need to be.

/\/

He can tell himself its not her anymore, but he still feels the tug that pulls them together. He can tell himself she's gone and something has taken her place but he knows he'll see her fall every time he closes his eyes.

He's killed her and knowing he had to do it makes it no easier. Knowing he wouldn't have let anyone else do it makes him wonder who he is.

He sits by her bed in the observation room and watches the forced rise and fall of her chest, knowing that eventually, he'll have to give in to Fraiser, to _her_. He's being watched, he knows, but he can't bring himself to stop, can't leave her side because when he does he's sure he'll spiral off, lost in space without her to hold him where he's supposed to be.

When they figure it out and she looks up at him he hates how quickly he compartmentalises. He shuts everything he's been feeling away, pulling himself back from her so they can maintain their distance.

/\/

Most of the time he finds it doesn't matter much and he wonders if that's how he let it go so far. SG1 are a law unto themselves, epitomising the SGC's general approach to the galaxy and taking it to the extreme.

And they're good - _so_ damn good - at not thinking about it. Not reacting to the inexorable pull of the other that they can forget it exists for huge stretches.

But there are those moments when he knows they're kidding themselves.

Hammond tells him she refused to give up her weapon and the first feeling he has is pride. He taught her that. The second is concern. Teal'c refused too, but it's in the Jaffa's character as much as in his own to question orders like that when he feels they jar with his sense of what's right. It's not in hers.

/\/

He doesn't like who he is when she's not safe. The man he becomes is too much the part of himself he tries to keep in check, holding back the darkness until he needs it. These past five years have given him the space to temper that man with something lighter. Always on the edge of insubordination, it's now irreverent rather than rude. Daniel saved him, and then Teal'c and Hammond and Carter saved him too and now he can't _not_ be this.

But when she's not safe it feels like the man he's become was a mask he's been wearing all this time. Heavy and faintly ridiculous.

The officer in him knows they've already shot the regs to hell in moments like these.

When he finds her and sees just how late he nearly was he has to let his training take over just to stop himself killing the men he finds with her.

Instead, he sends them to the other side of the room, putting them out of his reach even as he brings her into it, his hand falling to her leg and tightening on the fabric until he can feel her beneath it.

She looks afraid and surprised to see him and he hates that. She should have known he would find her but he knows he can't say that, can't say anything he's thinking without risking getting too close, so he retreats, arming her arms her and filling her in on what's next.

/\/

She's barely left his side since they left Antarctica and some distant part of him isn't happy about that. They want him to take in a Tok'ra symbiote and the way she asks shows she knows just how he feels about that.

But now she's found a way to save him and he finds he can't blame her for using it, not when she seems to have made a career out of doing just that.

Maybe not a career… more like a side hustle, because her main job is still saving the world - the universe - and saving him is just a byproduct of that. He's pretty sure.

And it's not like this is the riskiest way she's found to save him, it's by far the easiest. She just has to ask him to have himself. Her _Sir, please_ has barely died away and he's already nodding, as powerless to deny her as she must have known he'd be.

/\/

The realisation of what triggered the Tok'ra's suicidal assault on Baal's fortress doesn't surprise him as much as it should. That his team also worked it out - that its how they found him - worries him until he realises they're thinking generally, not specifically.

Because in truth it isn't what they think. _He's _not what they think. He doesn't want to leave people behind, true. But he's served a long time and he knows not everyone makes it home.

But Kanan looked into his head and saw _her_. Saw every time he risked his stupid ass to save her, despite the odds and the warning bells in his head. Saw _why_. Blended with that, Kanan was unable to do anything but go back.

He understands the symbiote even as he condemns him, because if he can compartmentalise that part of himself why can't the snake?

/\/

He watches as she shares a kook with Teal'c before the Jaffa turns away from them and she rests her head on his shoulder. He can feel his own fear coiling in his gut so he concentrates on keeping his breathing steady, trying to jostle her as little as possible.

She can't be comfortable, but he knows this is nothing to do with physical comfort. She's leaning against him and he's pushing back against her because they can't help it and this is less than he wants but more than he can have so he'll take it.

When Evanov dies he watches the horror on her face and tries to push down the panic he can feel fluttering under his ribs. He orders her to rest again, helping her lie back on the bench and resting his fingers on her arm.

By the time they come for him she's unconscious and he finds he can't look at her, instead keeping his eyes on Eggar and Wodan. He knows Nirrti won't bargain with him but tries anyway, terrified the sadistic Goa'uld is his last chance to save her.

When Nirrti is - finally, permanently - dead he's offered another chance and he barely thinks, speeding back to the cell to slide his arms under her and carrying her back to the machine. They heal her and he feels his panic recede like the tide, starts to push everything back to where it needs to be, but not before he reaches for her. He tells himself he's just helping her away from the machine, but his fingers linger slightly too long and he doesn't miss her outstretched hand either.

/\/

He seeks her out just before he has to leave to find Daniel, making sure he tells Teal'c beforehand. He knows what's behind the need to see her separately but can't acknowledge it. Part of him is - continually - disgusted at his own cowardice.

But he knows he has to see her, and knows this is the best way; when there isn't enough time for more than _goodbye_ and_ good luck_, because he's pretty sure she's as uneasy about his mission as he is about hers and for the first time in a long time he's afraid of what they'll say given more time.

/\/

He snaps at Daniel and knows he shouldn't. Daniel looks hurt and he's almost sorry but he can't take it back so he doesn't. He sees that while the younger man looks slightly hurt, he's not surprised, and he knows he should care more about that.

It's not a problem that he's anxious to find her. He'd do the same for anyone under his command - has done, more times than he cares to count - and he's convinced it means he'll never make general. One person can't matter so much.

The problem is what he worries will happen after he fails to find her. What it'll do to him when she doesn't come home. Because he's fairly certain he won't survive it. The taste of losing her is in the back of his throat like bile and he feels like a compass needle spinning loose, seeking north but finding nothing but a void.

When Teal'c follows him into the locker room and employs better tactics than Daniel he falls for it, snapping and spinning and joking to distance himself from what the Jaffa has to say.

He knows he's fooling no one but he's finding himself on the edge of not caring more and more these days, so when she calls him by his name it startles him and he calls her on it. When she takes it back he not sure if he's more disappointed with himself or her but bites back that feeling.

This is better. Safer.

And now she's back he can relax, bury the fear and the need that push him to find her, to bring her home no matter what.

/\/

He lends his weight to her request that the cop be told about the program, trying to ignore the expression in his CO's eyes as he does it.

It makes sense, he knows. Better this than what they've been doing the last few years. Hammond looks as though he wants to ask something but knows he'll either be lied to or hear something he can't afford to hear if he does so he tightens his jaw on the question.

He sends the older man a look - a grateful upturn at the corners of his mouth and leaves without waiting for formal dismissal.

She told him once that black holes consume themselves when everything else is gone - theoretically - and he wonders if that's what'll happen to him when she's finally gone. If he'll turn inwards, destroying himself.

/\/

When he does finally find her he's worried he hasn't. She can barely look at him and he really needs her to, to thank him like he had a choice in this - like every part of him hadn't been vibrating with the pull of her stuck in this place until Hammond signed off on the S&R - and tell him she's fine like the good soldier she is. But she doesn't.

She calls him sir - because at this point he's pretty sure it's the closest thing she has to a name for him - but she doesn't tell him she's ok. She doesn't bother to lie and if she's not going to he'll be damned if he is, so he sinks down to the ground beside her.

He drops an arm around her shoulders, ignoring the internal reminder about the cop, and pulls her in to rest against his side, only half surprised when she comes willingly, without compunction, her head resting on his shoulder.

/\/

He hears her. He feels scattered, his brain fizzing with the knowledge it can't contain, can barely translate, but through that, he hears her.

She wants something from him and he can't understand her words anymore so he settles on the sound of her voice as he drifts away. She's not happy about that, he can hear it in her tone and he's wishing there was enough of him left to help her when she asks again.

_**Please**__. Jack. _

/\/

When she hands him the box he feels like he's been ambushed. It's not an unfamiliar feeling, he reflects, but he never thought he'd be under attack from her.

He knows he should have seen this coming. The cop doesn't appear to be _too_ much of an idiot so of course he wants to marry her.

Still, he can't help but wish he'd left well enough alone. That he'd sent Daniel to check on her. That he didn't have to be the one to give her the final push away. Because he can't give her anything. He can't tell her not to do it - even though a part of him suspects that's what she wants.

Instead, he tells her half of the truth. Giving her words that could - and do - mean several things. If his family had remained intact he wouldn't be here. None of them would be. If they'd chosen each other instead of the job he's fairly certain he'd be dead. If by some miracle he'd survived he'd be out of the program, they could be together but separate and he's not sure if that's better or worse.

When he leaves her he feels the distance he's covering - fairly quickly - is much more than it should be, as though the space between her lab and his office is distorted somehow.

/\/

They relax, it's safe now. She calls him when he's off-base and they don't speak much about work. He can always hear the smile in her voice, knows she can hear his too.

A year ago this would have made him uneasy, would have had him using her rank instead of her name in order to preserve the distance they'd fought to maintain.

But now it's safe.

/\/

She's managed to surprise him, turning up here unannounced and he can feel himself spinning uneasily off his axis. He watches her eyes fall closed as Kerry exits the house and pushes against the feeling that he should comfort her, should move to stand in front of her the way he had after Janet died, proving that despite everything he's still there.

But he can't be there, so he maintains his distance, watching her try to process what's happening and feeling immeasurably grateful when her cell phone rings. The guilt he'll feel for that relief almost floors him.

He finds her in the isolation room hours after they've taken Jacob to the morgue. She's sitting on the high bed in the dark, looking smaller than he's ever seen her.

He thinks about leaving her alone, considers ordering her off the base but knows he won't. His feet have already taken him into the room before he's fully decided and he takes her hand, tugging her down until her boots hit the floor and he's holding her, tucking her head into this shoulder, because this is ok. The distance is maintained - she's still engaged - but he wasn't lying. He will always be there when she needs him, in case she needs him and he doesn't know how to see her like this and not pull her closer. Because

/\/

He watches her leave the cabin while he's fielding questions from Daniel and Teal'c. When he thinks he's answered enough he stands, ignoring the hand Teal'c drops on Daniel's shoulder when the archaeologist starts to rise too.

She's leaning on the fence around the decking, watching the water. She seems deep in thought so he watches her a moment. She's breathing deeply, her breath coming quickly as she clasps her hands in front of herself. He knows, somehow, that for once she's not trying to work anything out. If anything, she looks defeated, finally. In a way she hadn't until five minutes ago.

She sighs, compelling him to move. When he leans down next to her he takes her hand and he's not surprised when she threads their fingers together, tightening hers on his in a way he's certain she's never dared before.

Finally, he straightens, turning her so she's looking up at him. He feels his amusement at her bewilderment chased away by concern that she's taking this so badly before he sees in her eyes that she thinks she's losing him.

He tells her that's not so, that it's not possible and that what he's doing is giving them a chance, if she wants one. He tells her about the stop-loss and why it hadn't been necessary, once he made himself clear to the President and General Hammond. He tells her he's not going to try to keep them apart anymore but he senses she's not listening.

Her gaze is turned inwards, as though something he's said has started her thinking, so he stops talking and waits for her.

She blinks up at him and he can feel the weight of whatever she's been thinking even if he doesn't know the substance. Then she's in his arms and he realises he didn't even have to offer this time. She still looks uncertain so he ducks his head and kisses her, feeling the second she adjusts her orbit and falls against him.


End file.
